Heaven and Earth
by samrtaleck
Summary: A journey into the darker side of honor.


A SMARTALECK PRODUCTION  
Heaven and Earth - A story of the dark side of honor, a love lost, a  
soul consuming hate and thirst for revenge.  
  
By Arun  
arun2110@sancharnet.in  
arundude1@yahoo.com  
  
Prologue - revised version # 2  
  
Completed on 04/14/2002  
  
Disclaimer:  
Ranma 1/2 is the property of Rumiko Takahashi and Viz videos. Flame of  
Recca is owned by whoever created the show. I certainly do not own any  
of it. The characters I introduce are mine and you can use them if you  
so wish.  
  
Author's notes:  
Well, what can I say? Would 'mommy' be enough? ^_^  
  
Seriously, I thought that I was plagirizing from Don Granberry's work,  
'Comes the Cold Dragon', in the older version of Heaven and Earth and I  
did not want that. No self-respecting writer wants to copy from another  
and I knew that I was insulting Mr. Don Granberry by copying ideas (in  
a most blatant way) without his prior consent. So, I scrapped that  
version (And I wasn't getting anywhere with that plot, damnit! ^_^),  
and created a whole new plot. One filled with hate, love, you know, the  
works.  
  
This prologue is dark and parts of the story will be too. Hope you have  
the stomach for the stuff that's gonna happen later on. And please send  
me some C&C, I can't improve without it and it'd help me write so much  
quicker. ^_^  
  
***  
  
  
The trees were a blur. Specks of green, yellow and brown rushed by in  
the blink of an eye, interrupted by bright patches of fading sunlight  
in between.  
  
Truly, the sunset at the Bayankala Mountains was of  
breathtaking beauty, but Xian Pu did not have the time, or the frame of  
mind to enjoy it. She was fleeing for her life, her hunter, as yet,  
unseen, hot at her heels in pursuit.  
  
Her breath came in ragged gasps, sweat pouring from every  
pore of her body. Her eyes were wide and dilated, and her face  
splattered with little droplets of blood, contorted with fear and  
apprehension.  
  
She glanced back once in a while, trying to catch a glimpse  
of him, or was it her, and failed yet again, which only made the fear  
in the pits of her stomach gain in strength.  
  
As she ran, the green leaves in the trees and the brown,  
dry ones on the ground rustled on their own accord once in a while,  
breaking the silence of early evening in the forest around her. The  
sound of her monotonous breaths was regularly interrupted with cracks  
as wood splintered under the hunter's feet, who remained silent at all  
other times, making her think that the little sounds made by the errant  
footsteps were a game on his, or her part, meant to increase her fear  
and drive her to the edge, which it did.  
  
Colliding against yet another branch, which tore her  
already ragged and dirty clothes to an even greater extent, Xian Pu  
looked back, once more, to catch a glimpse of her pursuer. And like so  
many times before, she caught none, but this time there was a snicker  
to her left, which brought her up short.  
  
"Who is it?" Xian Pu asked coming to a standing halt, ready  
to flee, or fight at a moment's notice. Her grip on her sword tightened  
considerably, her eyes darting about the trees and her breath coming in  
quick, shallow gasps.  
  
A distorted voice, barely recognizable as human, replied.  
  
"Hahahaha! How does it feel to be the hunted, Xian Pu? I  
bet that all of your prey has felt the same way you feel right now!"  
  
The voice was male and Xian Pu could not help, but feel  
that she had heard it somewhere before.  
  
"Who... Who are you?" she panted, fear gripping her heart  
tighter in its vise-like grip.  
  
"I'm vengeance reborn, I am death incarnate..."  
  
Bam! A tree to her left exploded at its base, sending sharp  
pieces of wood and bark into the air in a brilliant shower of white.  
  
"Do..."  
  
Bam! Another tree, this time directly behind her, fell.  
  
"You..."  
  
Bam!  
  
"Remember..."  
  
Bam!  
  
"Me..."  
  
Bam!  
  
"Xian Pu..."  
  
Bam!  
  
"Of..."  
  
Bam!  
  
"The..."  
  
Bam!  
  
"Joketsuzoku..."  
  
Bam!  
  
"Amazons?" the voice said, dripping with utter contempt.  
  
Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!  
  
Every tree within a thirty yard radius of Xian Pu was  
destroyed now. She, herself, was on her back, a painfully sharp looking  
strip of raw wood sticking out of her leg, just above her knee. She  
crawled away from the voice, rivulets of blood flowing from a cut to  
her upper lip, where an errant chip of wood had struck and from the  
gash in her thigh. She knew that voice and once, she knew the man  
behind it. No wonder all fifteen members of her patrol had fallen so  
easily.  
  
"Ranma..." she whispered, respect and overwhelming fear in  
her voice.  
  
The air directly in front of her shimmered and Ranma  
appeared, looking nothing like the eighteen-year old, carefree teenager  
of three years back. His red silk shirt had been replaced by a jet  
black one in those three years, for better stealth and his shoulders  
had broadened so that he was now, a true man among men in the looks  
department. His facial features had become more clear cut and his eyes  
were full of loathing, so unlike the caring, compassionate ones she  
once knew. The pigtail was gone too, replaced by a shoulder length mane  
of black hair, which flowed without hindrance from his head to rest on  
his shoulders. He had a brace of wood from a very rare and very sought  
after species of tree, which was particularly useful in storing and  
focusing ki blasts on both his hands. An errant beam of light from the  
setting sun fell on his right hand as the trees rustled gently in an  
unfelt wind and reflected off a metal brace, which rested just under  
the wooden one. The metal was white, highly polished and highly  
reflective in the shape of a dragon of ages long gone. Ranma moved his  
hand unconsciously and a stray beam of light fell on her eye, blinding  
her just a little.  
  
"Glad to see you remember me," he spat, contemptuously. "Do  
you like my new look?"  
  
Xian Pu did not reply, retreating even further from him. If  
the brutality with which her patrol had been 'dealt with' was any  
measure of the things to come, then she was in for a world of pain  
followed by a merciless death separated from her family and friends. He  
had plenty of reasons to harbor a murderous rage toward her and had  
purposely let her live through the slaughter of her companions in the  
squad.  
  
Ranma took a step forward, a small, dark smile on his lips  
and Xian Pu cringed, prompting a derisive snort from him.  
  
"Really, Xian Pu, for all the purported virtues that an  
Amazon has, you and yours lack a lot of them," he said, stopping and  
staring into her face. "I let you live through that," he pointed the  
thumb of his left hand behind him towards where the remains of her  
patrol were scattered over a half mile area, "'cause I have something  
in mind for you..."  
  
Xian Pu gulped.  
  
Ranma snorted, again.  
  
"Relax, will ya," he said, reverting back to his old form  
of speech. "I'm not going to kill you... yet... Tell the Matriarch,  
your grandmother, that Ranma of the Hokage walks on this Earth once  
more and that his heart craves the blood of those who destroyed his  
life. Tell her that for the crimes that the Amazons and theirs  
committed against the Clan Hokage, the School Matsubetsu Kakuto Ryuu  
and its practitioners, the life of all Amazons, both male and female,  
are forfeit. Tell her, there is no place on Earth where she can hide  
from me. Tell her I'm coming for her," he said and vanished, leaving  
the startled, scared out of her wits Amazon alone, breathing a little  
more freely than before, now that the danger was gone, to ponder the  
latest developments and what they meant for the tribe's future  
survival.  
  
Seconds ticked by and Xian Pu remained as she was, her eyes  
staring at the space where Ranma had stood as her breathing slowly  
returned to normal. Finally, sure that the danger was long gone, she  
stood up painfully on her legs, balancing herself on her sword. Just as  
she took her first step towards the village, Ranma's voice echoed  
through the clearing, again.  
  
"One more thing," it said. "Die!"  
  
Silence.  
  
*It was just a ruse! He was going to kill me all along,*  
Shampoo thought, hopelessly eyeing the sprawling expanse of the forest  
before her, intent on catching a glimpse of his face one last time. She  
was not going to beg forgiveness, for such was not the way of her  
people, but she would be able to see the only man she had ever loved  
one more time.  
  
A huge ball of ki, slightly larger in size than a  
Volkswagen, formed in the air ahead of her and exploded outwards, in a  
searing hot pulse of energy that destroyed everything for hundreds of  
yards around. The heat was so intense that it literally boiled the  
flesh off her body.  
  
The thunderous boom and the blinding light faded as soon as  
they had started, revealing a thirty yard wide crater at the epicenter  
of the blast. The air at the very center of the crater shimmered once  
and Ranma reappeared.  
  
"One down, Akane!" he said aloud. And even though his voice  
sounded weak, it was loud all the same. Nevertheless, it was lost  
amidst the roar of the inferno created by his attack and fed by the  
wood in the destroyed section of the forest.  
  
***  
  
Notes:  
Hope you enjoyed the story.  
  
A big thank you to my pre-reading team. They are certainly the best  
there is. ^_^  
jakub [jpilecki@poczta.onet.pl]  
Kaz [kazblah945@aol.com]  
Madcat [madcat08@hotmail.com]  
Brain [bmccullough@nucles.com]  
James Merritt [j.merritt1@home.com]  
Philip Penty [plainswaker@hotmail.com]  
Zero [shinzero@home.com]  
Alexander Cheezem [cheezeA@CLEMSON.EDU]  
Getzeye [Getzeye@idx.com.au]  
Lance Smith [darkdragon2002@hotmail.com]  
Peter Blundell [peterblundell@operamail.com]  
Malikite [malikite3@aol.com]  
  
The story can be found at Lady Cosmos, The Penultimate Ranma Fanfic  
Index, My website [when I get around to updating it, which won't be  
soon] and the FFML (I think!). 


End file.
